An update on mumps activity from the Iowa Department of Health. I haven't written about this in a few days because there's not much more to tell. Cases are still increasing, and they're recommended that students between 18 and 22 get booster shots (especially those who've only had one shot). Preliminary data suggests that the vaccine efficacy has been around 80% for one shot, and 90% for those who've gotten 2 shots. Of course, there are still those who doubt efficacy, and even people who cheer the spread of the virus. It should be noted, though, that there have been at least 3 cases of encephalitis during this outbreak (out of the 681 cases with completed follow-up reports), so despite the pooh-poohing of the anti-vaccine brigade, mumps can indeed be serious. Orchitis--swelling of the testicles--was present in 6% of cases as well. Obviously I can't relate, but that doesn't exactly sound like fun, either.

The number of people fleeing their homes to escape fighting between rebels, the army and government-backed militias had risen by 200,000 to more than 2 million in the past three months, he said.

This page lists several places where you can donate. If you're in the DC area, you can also head to the rally taking place tomorrow (April 30th).

Mike and Orac take on a young earth creationist/medical student in this post at Respectful Insolence and theseposts over at the lair of the Mad Biologist. (Note: the latter is on the relationship between Shigella and E. coli, so it should be of double interest to readers here).

Finally, frogs are still dying from a killer fungus--and it's become worrisome enough that researchers are putting together a froggy "Noah's ark" to save as many species as possible.

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It's hard to believe that it's been 2 years since Iowa's 2006 mumps outbreak (more background and details on that here, here, here, and here).
By the time the outbreak ended, 8 states had been heavily affected (and 45 reported at least one case), with a total of 6584 cases of mumps and 85…

Orac highlighted here a post over at Vox Populi which doubted the effectiveness of the mumps vaccine, in light of the recent epidemic in Iowa. I was prepared to write a whole post on the math of it, but Mark at Good Math, Bad Math saved me some work. Nevertheless, I have a few things to add after…

I mentioned last week that Iowa's suffering from a large outbreak of mumps. An update, from the March 30th Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report:
In the United States, since 2001, an average of 265 mumps cases (range: 231--293 cases) have been reported each year,* and in Iowa, an average of five…

Sometimes amid all the news about H5N1, the "old and boring" diseases get overlooked, such as chickenpox and mumps.
State health officials said they are concerned about a rare strain of virus behind an outbreak of 60 mumps cases in Iowa.
Mary Gilchrist, director of the state's University Hygienic…

Tara, those mumps-chasin' mamas are scary! (Yet, it's like a traffic accident -- it's hard to look away from the thread.)

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As several others have already noted, after almost 12 years, Scienceblogs is shutting down at month's end. Though I've done most of my writing elsewhere over the last few years, I'd certainly like to keep the archives of this blog up somewhere, and maintain it as a place to post random musings that…

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I recently finished a 2-year stint as an American Society for Microbiology Distinguished Lecturer. It's an excellent program--ASM pays all travel expenses for lecturers, who speak at ASM Branch meetings throughout the country. I was able to attend Branch meetings from California and Washington in…

A claim that scientists need to quit making:
I've written about these types of claims before. The first one--a claim that antimicrobial peptides were essentially "resistance proof," was proven to be embarrassingly wrong in a laboratory test. Resistance not only evolved, but it evolved…

The news over the past 24 hours has exclaimed over and over:
HIV's Patient Zero Exonerated
How scientists proved the wrong man was blamed for bringing HIV to the U.S.
Researchers Clear "Patient Zero" from AIDS Origin Story
H.I.V. Arrived in the U.S. Long Before ‘Patient Zero’
Gaetan Dugas: "patient…

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Let me start off by saying something you may not know. The big corporations and the 1%ers you have learned to hate fund many of the projects you've learned to love. I have not checked lately, but Murdoch and FOX corporation for several years in a row funded at a 50% or 60% level virtually all of the National Geographic specials produced. Major museums known for their great exhibits are often…

Is it possible to pack a DVD with idiocy so dense that light bends around it? I don't know, but I found someone who gave it a damn good try. The Beautiful Truth is a 2008 documentary about Gerson Therapy, the supposed diet-based cure for cancer. It produced by earth NOW! a small indie label from the Cinema Libre Studio. There are numerous excerpts from the movie on YouTube, which give a…

“From a little spark may burst a flame.” -Dante Alighieri
It's hard to believe that less than two years ago, we hadn't even begun Messier Monday, and now there are fewer than 20 objects left! Today represents a great milestone, as we finally take on the last of fifteen galaxies that Messier catalogued as part of the Virgo Cluster!
Image credit: Mike Hankey, via http://www.mikesastrophotos.com/…